Devotchkas and Malchicks
by AliBlack
Summary: O my brothers, you know when life shoves you into a corner and then some crazy veshch, maybe a malenky thing, opens up a whole bolshy path for you? Ah, the sweet nector of a fresh beginning. [Novelverse, AlexOC]


_God, I love Burgess. I worship him, therefore I do not claim to own his genius. I am but a humble admirer.  
_

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"What's it going to be then, eh?"

O my brothers, I thought I had told thou you'll no longer be viddying your droogie Alex anymore. I should have known you'd be back, Bog in all his glory always has a way of churning up the past and you end up getting tolchocked with it right in the litso. Real horrorshow like.

Well if you're going to be here anyway, it just so happens that your humble narrator has had quite a life changing event. When last you left I was making up my rasoodock about what to do and all, well I was turning a new leaf. I had myself a job and after viddying Pete and his zheena at that little chai mesto he invited me for dinner. Imagine that, Pete, all grown with a wife that cooks him some nice pishcha all the time. And he invited me for dinner.

Of course my first problem was deciding what platties to adorn myself in. I dressed myself in the heighth of fashion always, but that wouldn't do in that soomka's home. I should wear like a suit, the one I itty to work in, and mind my manners like a good little malchick. I was, after all, going to soon attempt a search for the mother of my son. Pete's wife Georgina smecked her little gulliver off at the way I was govoreeting the night I'd seen them so I thought I ought be careful what I was going on about. Speak formally; be the polite, upstanding young man that you know your humble narrator to be. Quite.

"What's it going to be then, eh?"

So there was me and Pete and we sat in his zheena's dining room, waiting for Georgina to tell us what she'd made. Sheppard's pie and potatoes, she says, with bread pudding for dessert. Lovely pishcha I said, but not those words exactly, and my thanks.

"What have you been up to Alex?" Pete said to me, as we ittied off to the dining room.

"Working mostly." I was trying to move around the corner into a seat without knocking over any veshches she had there on the wall. It was a like malenky mesto they had together but cozy for just the two of them. For me just on my oddy knocky it would have been right fitting too, maybe a malenky bit bolshy even.

"Mhmm," he says, nodding in the like-grown up way he does now. "You still up to all your old tricks?"

"Suppose you could skazat like that. There's Len, Rick, and Bully but it just goes around again in a circle like all the rezes with the four of us malchicks, back in the day. No veck is fine with it after awhile. Grow out of it, you pony?"

"Yes, I know what you mean." He sat back in his chair smoting up at the ceiling with some malenky grin on his litso. "I remember just before you went away-"

"To the Staja."

"Yes. It was… it was fun being a group, being brothers. But with all those other things, they're just not something that's right anymore." Pete, my old droog – the last I had, or at least could trust – viddied me there as I sat, his little grin going away. "About time you left it behind, I should think."

"Yeah?" I gave him a right nod. "Suppose it might be." So I start looking around at the veshches on the wall and their little mesto they have together. "Real horrorshow place you got, Pete. Thou art living well, I can viddy, eh?"

"If by well you mean happy, I'd say yes. Otherwise we scrape by. But it's just that first part that matters, right?"

Around then, Georgina was ittying in with the plates and things for the pishcha but then Pete like grabs her wrist as she's putting it all out, saying why've you got four? So his zheena blushes right bezoomny and chumbles that 'Lucetta' would be joining us. She asks me real skorry if I mind and I, to be the polite, upstanding young man that you know your humble narrator to be, tell her 'I don't mind in the least,' which pleased her.

But apparently this is the wrong veshch to say for my old droog Pete who puts his face into his rookers all angry.

"Georgina, you know it is rude to invite two guests at once," he govoreets to which she returns that I said I didn't mind. "A bit too late to ask isn't it?" he keeps saying. She stops as she slooshies the doorbell ringringing away and itties off to get 'Lucetta.'"

"Who's this devotchka your zheena's called over?" I ask my droog to which he says, "Georgina's sister."

"Molodoy or starry?"

"Younger, quite past seventeen I'd say."

Yeah, I say, funny she should have her over the same time as your droog was here, eh?

"Not such a coincidence, I would think," Pete govoreets. "Don't you get any ideas, no matter what Georgina says. Lucetta has been with her boyfriend since they were fifteen and that won't be changing anytime soon. Her parents won't allow it."

Yeah, I chumble thinking this was a queer turn of events, and I hear the two soomkas coming back toward us vecks in the dining room. And there she is.

The most striking devotchka I'd ever seen, like Bog and all his angels and saints were shining some kind of divine light down and onto her as I sat, all quiet-like and speechless in my chair. I knew it had to be her.

So there I am, my rot all wide like bezoomny, viddying her all up and down. She was like her sister, being real horrorshow in a soft way, not like throw her down for the old in-out right there. The kind, like her sister, you just want to smot at for a long long long time. Long dark hair and dark eyes, both not like Georgina's, but in their litsos they looked related.

"Hullo," I said skorry.

"Good evening," she returned with a nod, being like more focused on my droog Pete who was balling his rookers on the table but trying to give the devotchkas a big grin, but looking more like bolnoy (or sick) with his zoobies all showing. I tried not to let out a bolshy smeck at the look of him.

'Lucetta,' as it were, sat down on the side between Pete and me, across from her sister. I, being the perfect mannered young man you know your narrator to be, pulled out her chair for her and graciously helped her off with her jacket, of course. It was a real horrorshow jacket, like the heighth of fashion but for the bagatty (or the rich) and not the poor nadsats like Pete and me are, or were. Funny she was all done up in platties that most definitely cost some pretty polly, when my droogie and his zheena are living in this malenky place, though cozy. I'd have bet my yarbles that jacket I was viddying could have paid their flat's rent for a month at least. I said something like that, something about where does Lucetta get the cutter to dress in platties of the bagatty, though I said it nicer than that. And so everyone goes all real quiet like, Pete clearing his throat like cough cough cough and Georgina playing with her napkin.

"I still live with our parents," the angelic devotchka says with a fake little smile, not moving her glazzies up to viddy more than her plate. For the way everyone got all rezdrez I stopped govoreeting about it altogether.

"Oh, Lucetta," Georgina says all of a sudden. "You simply must listen to Alex here – sorry, sorry, this is Alex, and Alex, this is my sister Lucetta – but you must hear him speak! It… it is interesting, to say the least." Charming soomka that Georgina is, bringing up something new to go on about all skorry like. So she's smoting (or like looking) at me going, "Alex say something."

"What would you have me say, my dear woman?" I say just like the polite young man I am.

Lucetta is confused. "That doesn't sound strange to me."

"Oh no, Alex," Georgina sulks. "Like you did the other day."

"She means nadsat," Pete tells me, starting to smeck a bit again. "Try – let's see if I remember any of it – try saying 'this is a bunch of nonsence my friends; let's either make up our minds about what to do tonight or just go home and to sleep.'

So I viddy Lucetta with her glazzies finally on me, waiting to slooshy my nadsat, and I repeat what my droog says, "This be chepooka, me brothers; We'll make up our rasoodocks what to do this nochy or go back to our domies and have a good spatchka instead." And so I hear Lucetta like smecking, not as much as Georgina, but still.

"What did you say it was called?" my angel was asking.

"Nadsat," Pete says. "It means teenager or how they speak. Not any that go to your school, I'm sure. But back in the day that is how my friends and I spoke, how Alex still does."

"I'm trying not to," your humble narrator says, all formal as I should be. "At least for now, seeing how Georgina laughs at me when I do." So Georgina did a horrorshow job of getting us all radosty (or like joyful) again and I asked Lucetta, my angel, what skolliwoll she goes to. St. Anne's for Girls she says, govoreeting about some bolshy building on the far side of the city for the bugatty to send their special little ptitsas to when they have more pretty polly to waste than like everyone else's pee and em. Georgina says she went there too, such a waste of cutter when she's 'only a typist' she says. And they govoreet about skolliwoll and rabbits (or work) and how their pee and em are, which is 'the same as always.'

Ding! goes some malenky bell from the kitchen, and Georgina gets up to get the pishcha that is done. But Lucetta stands up too, grabbing that horrorshow jacket of hers and says she has to go, meeting 'Arnold' for dinner. Real skorry Georgina was back in the room saying no she must stay for the pishcha she made. O but Arnold is waiting. Georgina looks like Pete did when he slooshied that Lucetta was stopping by, rookers all balled up and trying not to look angry.

"Lucetta," she says all like she's skvating (or grasping) for something to say. "You know I prefer to entertain more than one person at a time. You don't want to make poor Alex feel out of place; didn't mother tell you to dine in even numbers?" As gloopy as that sounds, it worked on the molody sister, and I could viddy she felt baddiwad for it.

"I am truly sorry, Alex. I don't mean to make you feel out of place. I hope you understand I have prior engagements."

O my brothers, I was not expecting this from the divine devotchka. I had never slooshied such a veshch as dining in even numbers. It was just chepooka, I think. So I look up at her, the voloss, the glazzies, the litso of an angel; I smile up real like charming and tell her, "I'm sure you could make it up to me." I could viddy my droog Pete out the side of my vison, glazzies just about boring a hole in my gulliver. Lucetta's got real bolshy like what I'd said was complete chepooka, and of course, so sorry, what can she do? "Let me talk you to supper another night." Georgina was just as wide-eyed and rot all open. Pete was shaking his Gulliver like mad.

"Saturday alright?" Lucetta says, as she's pulling her jacket tighter and I just grin.

Once she'd ittyed off, your humble narrator feels his bratty viddying him real heavy. Pete says, "I told you not to do that, did I not?"

"You never said 'do not ask her to dinner.'"

"That is beyond the point." He was all like calm for whatever reason, but then Pete was always the most sober one of us all. He just puts his cloth napkin on his lap, glazzies down and frowning. "She is not the type of girl that you should be spending too much time with. Besides, she is always with Arnold."

"Exactly," Georgina govoreets from the doorway. "She could use some friends beside that boy."

"You know what I mean, Georgina."

"You speak out of place, and in front of our guest, dear."

I viddyed Pete crack his knuckles as his zheena went to fetch the pishcha. "Little Alex, you just do not understand."

"I am trying to turn over a new leaf, my droog. I do not see the harm in buying a pretty girl dinner."

"There is so much you don't understand," he says again. And I kind of wonder what I'm missing.

Well well well well. So it turned out I wouldn't have to go looking for the woman, she'd just turned up right under my sodding nose. Real horrorshow like. Funny what Pete says about her having a malchick of her own. O my brothers, you know enough of your humble narrator to pony that I'd be changing that real skorry.

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_A/N: Let me not put up any pretenses; I love ACO (although the book kicks the movie's rear-end) and it is fun to write, mostly. BUT, yes, it is 90 spawned from an elaborate fantasy of mine. So what? At least I can admit it. Plus it's fun to write._

_Nevertheless, any concrit for me? Go ahead, give it to me straight. __I can take it like a...er... woman I guess. Here's a hint: telling me what's bad and what can be improved is helpful to me as a writer, and I appreciate it. Needless anger/rudeness/flamage is for children (and therefore laughed at). Make love, not war, you know?  
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_Love you guys. ACO rules.  
_

_+Rating subject to change._


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